Motorola sues TiVo over DVR patents

Motorola Mobility Holdings has filed a suit against TiVo claiming infringement of its patents for digital video recorders.

In the complaint, filed in Texas, Motorola contends that it owns multiple patents related to DVRs, including some from the mid-1990s by a group of engineers whose company was later purchased by a Motorola subsidiary. It suggests TiVo wilfully infringed those patents, which were filed more than two years before TiVo’s founding.

Motorola’s claim also notes that TiVo is seeking to enforce its own DVR patents against Verizon Communications, one of Motorola’s clients.The telco offers DVR services through Motorola-supplied set-top boxes . The case is ongoing.

Motorola said it filed the suit to protect its “valuable intellectual property,” and would move aggressively to protect that value on behalf of its customers, partners and shareholders. Motorola is seeking “all available remedies” for the alleged infringement and declarations that the TiVo patents are invalid and Motorola set-top boxes do not violate TiVo’s intellectual property.

Tivo is currently embroiled in a long-running legal battle with Dish Network and EchoStar and has also accused AT&T of the same patent breaches as Verizon.